The top 10 photography exhibitions of 2017.

I picked this up in The Guardian. 😊 Pelle

About the top image: A still from Incoming by Richard Mosse. Photograph: Courtesy of the artist, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York and carlier|gebauer, Berlin.

Perhaps the most widely discussed exhibition of the year, Mosse’s vast three-screen video installation was not strictly photography, but addressed all the issues that the medium is freighted with as it negotiates the post-truth world. Shot on a hi-tech military surveillance camera that registers body heat from as far away as 30km, Incoming reimagined the contemporary refugee crisis as a Ballardian dystopian drama populated by spectral figures moving slowly through an alien landscape. Beautifully observed moments of heightened intimacy – a lone figure praying to Mecca amid the tumult around him – provide breathing space in an almost overwhelming audiovisual installation.

Swaps – Photographs from the David Hurn collections runs from 30 September 2017 to 11 March 2018 at the National Museum Cardiff

All you’ve got is a box with a hole at the front. That’s what we’ve all got and that’s all we’ve ever had since photography was invented.

“All that happens is the image of life out there goes whizzing through that lens and goes bang onto some material or other and you get a trace of that life on the back of the box. And you’ve got once chance at it, unlike painting or writing you can’t go back and edit, in photography the moment’s gone and will never happen again.

“So, all we have is this box with a hole in the front. So how come if there was a sheep dog trial for instance and Cartier-Bresson, McCullin and Bruce Davidson were there, they are all photographing exactly the same thing but if you showed me 10 pictures from that event I would be able to tell you who had taken what picture?

“It’s the signature of someone which can’t be contrived; it’s the purest thing to their real personality, the world seen through their eyes. The pictures are stamped with the unique style of the individual who shot them.

“But what is necessary for the authorship to come through is an impeccable command of the technical side. The best photographers might say ‘Oh, the technical side is unimportant’. Well, the technical side is staggeringly important but it has got to the point with them that they don’t have to think about it. That only comes through hard work and incessant practice.

“I always stress this point… you’re not a photographer because you are interested in photography.

“The picture is out there, you don’t make the picture, you just have a good visual eye and press the button at the right time. For that you must have an intense curiosity and tenacity, not just a passing visual interest, in the theme of the pictures. This curiosity leads to intense examination, reading, talking, research and many, many failed attempts.

“The idea that there’s no future in taking pictures is nonsensical. If you go to Smiths in Paddington station there’s 3,000 magazines for sale and they’ve all got pictures in them, they’re on websites.

“Everybody’s floundering a little bit as to how to make any money from it but those sorts of problems will be solved, clever people will find ways. Pictures are going to be needed there and the skills are still going to be the same.”

It is a measure of the force of the medium of photography that a picture that probably took a 60th of a second to shoot continues to fuel the life of another man 62 years on.

Some like to get their faces dirty. Like some jockeys. Yesterday was an evening on the dirt track, and though it was really dirty there was a very friendly and good atmosphere. Many of them realised the situation and my interest in their dirt covered faces. I think they really enjoyed it. However the evening races are tricky with the flood lights. I am looking forward to another day race soon.

Together with Avedon, Penn, Steichen, Strand, Arbus, Cartier-Bresson, Albert Watson and a few more, he is one of the truly great photographers. For me. They are all different and perhaps I should not compare them. So I don´t. Read the article from The Guardian, by Sean O `Hagan.

See the images and imagine the sound that he recorded. 😊 Pelle

Smith took many famous pictures, but also taped hours of audio of jazz greats, writers and artists of the day in his New York loft. A new book explores his strange world

Smith was perhaps the single most important American photographer in the development of the editorial photo essay. His visual narratives, usually published in Life magazine, were often brutally atmospheric. He evoked the horrors of the second world war in the Pacific, where he was injured by mortar fire, and chronicled the working life of Dr Ernest Ceriani in the small town of Kremmling, Colorado, in his 1948 series, Country Doctor, now recognised as the first extended editorial photo story.

In 1955, Smith became a member of the Magnum picture agency, travelling to Pittsburgh for his first assignment, which entailed producing 100 photographs in three weeks to mark the city’s first centenary. He worked on the project for three years, producing around 21,000 photographs. Today, his legacy is maintained by the W Eugene Smith Memorial Fund, which celebrates and encourages the kind of humanistic photography he pioneered, if not the impossible tasks he set himself and his beleaguered editors.

A US soldier during the final days of fighting to gain control of the island of Saipan from occupying Japanese forces during the second world war. Photograph: W Eugene Smith/Life/GettySmoke pours from the chimneys of an Ohio steel mill in a 1949 picture for Life magazine. Photograph: W Eugene Smith/Life/GettyCountry doctor Ernest Ceriani photographed after having performed a caesarean section during which both baby and mother died due to complications. The picture, taken in Kremmling, Colorado, was part of Smith’s groundbreaking photo essay for Life magazine in 1948. Photograph: W Eugene Smith/Life/Getty

The first Lady Jockeys’ Thoroughbred World Championship was held at Bro Park yesterday evening, on the 4th of July. Exciting! We had a french winner, Maryline Eon. One more competition before making choices and printing for The Derby at Jägersro.

Here is my selection of images from the event. It happened to be many telling eyes.

With my upcoming exhibition at this years Derby at Jägersro, during their 100 year anniversary, I take every chance to get myself a larger selection of images to chose from. Yesterday I added a few more at Bro Park. Come see the exhibition at Jägersro in Malmö on the 16th of July. There will be lots of exciting activities at the anniversary, and great races off course. Welcome!